Question 4:In regard to the "Cytochrome c" protein marker, which one is closer to the turtle?A. birdB. snakeC. Human

Question 5:Same as above, which one is closer to the snake?A. birdsB. humanC. turtle

Question 6:True or False. Humans and horses, both being placental mammals, are presumed to have shared a common ancestor with each other more recently than they shared a common ancestor with a kangaroo (a marsupial). The cytochrome c of a human is more similar to that of a horse than to that of a kangaroo.

Question 8:True or False. The roots of the Tree of Life do not show a nested pattern.

Question 9:Yes or No. If we exposed house cats to watery environments for 50 million years would they turn into whale-like creatures?

Question 10:True or False. There are four basic strategies that life uses for getting oxygen to the cells. These are gills, trachea, lungs and book lungs. Evolutionists believe that all these strategies developed independently because they were needed. They and also believe that within those strategies several sub strategies developed independently.

In order for evolution to occur, you need to add information to a genome (simple-to-complex), along with morphological changes. Can you think of one example where this has been observed? And please don't use de-evolution examples such as sickle cells or elephants losing there tusks.

Quite frankly I don't know the answers to some of these questions, but I do know the underlying reasons for asking them and the false assumption being made by the poster to justify his conclusions.

him wrote: The answers are the exact opposite of what evolution predicted. The belief in evolution is more than likely - false.

Can't answer this one without a bit more context, but its an idiotic statement. Evolution doesn't predict anything. Evolution (more precisely biological evolution) is the observed fact of the frequency of gene variation in a population varying from generation to generation. The theory of evolution is both an explanation for this and a predictive tool. If the theory of evolution were shown to make a false prediction then guess what happens... Either the theory is modified to accomodate the new information, or it is discarded. Thats the power of the scientific method and the strength of a scientific theory.

him wrote: No, you can't disprove it because it's unfalsifiable. Materialistic, naturalistic molecules-to-man evolution is a belief.

Another load of shite. He refers to "it" here, which makes it hard to refute since "it" could be pretty much anything, but the theory of evolution is an explanation of observations from reality and as such any aspect of it is falsifiable, at any time, simply by showing that a given observation falsifies that part of the theory.As for molecules to man, just what does he propose we are made of if not molecules?

him wrote: Science doesn't adapt to anything. Science cannot speak, but scientists do. Evidence doesn't speak either, they are only interpreted. You are attributing concrete characteristics to an abstraction.

That's really quite amusing and a complete misunderstanding of the meaning of the sentence. Science itself could be broadly described as the accumulated understanding of the natural world acquired by man. When we refer to science adapting we are describing the enhancement in knowledge acquired by some observation or experiment that has improved our understanding of a given event/phenomena. The best analogy I can think of is the improvement in our ability to build microscopes. As we can see things that are smaller and smaller so our understanding of the very small improves. The very small has always existed but was impossible to see until the tech was invented to see it. Until invented the resolution was too big, the image was blurry. Science adapting can be thought of as the resolution of mans understanding showing finer and finer details as we understand more and more.

Him wrote:Genetic PhylogenyQuestion 1:Which of the following are more closely related to mollusks (scallops) in regard to rRNA sequences?A. deuterostomes (sea urchins)B. arthropods (brine shrimp)C. tarantula (spider)

Question 2:According to the "luteinizing hormone, releasing hormone" (LHRH) protein, which are more closely related to humans?A. frogsB. birdsC. fish

Question 4:In regard to the "Cytochrome c" protein marker, which one is closer to the turtle?A. birdB. snakeC. Human

Question 5:Same as above, which one is closer to the snake?A. birdsB. humanC. turtle

I confess ignorance of the particular examples, though I can guess at the authors motives. I would like to call him out on a couple of points before offering answers. Number one, could he define "closely related" and "closer". I would guess that the author is going to refer to the molecular clock as a means of establishing an approximation for a given speciation event, trying to track down the last common ancestor of two species. Since these specific examples refer to specific genes it is reasonable to suggest that the author is unfamiliar with the technique as using a single gene to identify speciation events is a terrible method of constructing a phlogeny. Rather, as Richard Dawkins so eloquently explains, we rely on a "majority vote" from a multitude of different genes to allow us to arrive at a date which can be relied upon.

Further, in the cases stated above the sequences of DNA referenced are active parts of the genome and as such have been subject to various selection pressures for millions of years. As such any definition of "closer" must be treated with great skepticism. As an example, let me suggest the following.

At some point a given individual gets a novel mutation in a gene. It propogates and ends up in a speciation event with one species receiving the gene in the form AAA and the other with it in the form AAB.

a few million years later and all decendents of the AAA individual still have gene AAA. AAB, however, experienced further mutatiions. In any number of species we now find variants of the form AAB, BAB ABC BBB and even CCC. (bear in mind this is all hypothetical at this point).

Now, if we compare the genes of one species and find AAA, and we find the genes of another species and find AAB we might conclude that they are more closely related than a species that has CCC, but we note from the above example that CCC and AAB share a more recent common ancestor than AAA and AAB.

In this particular example "closer" is entirely misleading as, without a proper definition, it could be used to mean gene variations that are more similar. This is a terrible way to define closer, and I'll bet money this is how your creotard friend is defining closer. Hope that makes sense.

Him wrote:Question 6:True or False. Humans and horses, both being placental mammals, are presumed to have shared a common ancestor with each other more recently than they shared a common ancestor with a kangaroo (a marsupial). The cytochrome c of a human is more similar to that of a horse than to that of a kangaroo.

I have no idea what he is getting at here. If he is talking about the origin of taxonomy then we can talk about Linneaus, who was classifying animals by comparative anatomy 50 years before Darwin was born.

Him wrote:Question 8:True or False. The roots of the Tree of Life do not show a nested pattern.

True. They show horizontal gene transfer, its an area of intense scrutiny at the minute as the work of virii and the role they play in evolution is only just beginning to be properly understood. Your point?

Him wrote:Question 9:Yes or No. If we exposed house cats to watery environments for 50 million years would they turn into whale-like creatures?

Depends on the circumstances, but if the selection pressures were right then I would suggest it would take much less than 50 million years for a decendent of extant cats to become acquatic, the first stages of which would be something like an otter or similar.

Him wrote:Question 10:True or False. There are four basic strategies that life uses for getting oxygen to the cells. These are gills, trachea, lungs and book lungs. Evolutionists believe that all these strategies developed independently because they were needed. They and also believe that within those strategies several sub strategies developed independently.

Not a biologist but I would hazard a guess that there are more ways than those stated. I would also suggest that there is no belief involved, again, given that evolutionary pathways for the development of the physical characteristics are well known and demonstrably plausible.

This guy has no point to make.

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

In order for evolution to occur, you need to add information to a genome (simple-to-complex), along with morphological changes. Can you think of one example where this has been observed? And please don't use de-evolution examples such as sickle cells or elephants losing there tusks.

Several actually.Add information to a genome. Lets start with nylonaise, a bacteria that has evolved to digest a substance that did not exist in nature until 60 years ago. That would be new information.

As for morphological change, it is trivial to show that this can happen, you can go into any animal and actively change its genome to produce freaks. You can make skin irridescant, for example, or you can give a fly extra wings. Now I grant you that these are not exactly the sort of changes that would occur in nature. A fly could develop an extra pair of wings (fucked up hox genes), but is likely to die, but thats not the point. Mutations that are positive can and do occur. Mutations that make morpological changes can and do occur. Advantageous changes survive, deleterious ones do not. Since any huge change in morphology is likely to be harmful morphological change is a gradual process. As such we cannot observe it (ok, we can, but only on a very small scale) in the short periods of time we humans live for, so we must look around at the evidence on the earth to see if there is a record of morphological change.

The creationtard replied. I invited him here, but I guess it'sa bit futile.

Squawk wrote:Several actually.Add information to a genome. Lets start with nylonaise, a bacteria that has evolved to digest a substance that did not exist in nature until 60 years ago. That would be new information.

This is probably the best evidence for a higher-order evolution in action, but it still shows no morphological change. Also, at this level of evolution, it's weak because it's based on single protein enzymes. And, no function at a higher level of complexity, that involves multiple proteins totaling more than a few hundred fairly specified residues, has ever been shown to evolve in real time.

Squawk wrote:As for morphological change, it is trivial to show that this can happen, you can go into any animal and actively change its genome to produce freaks. You can make skin irridescant, for example, or you can give a fly extra wings. Now I grant you that these are not exactly the sort of changes that would occur in nature. A fly could develop an extra pair of wings (fucked up hox genes), but is likely to die, but thats not the point. Mutations that are positive can and do occur. Mutations that make morpological changes can and do occur. Advantageous changes survive, deleterious ones do not. Since any huge change in morphology is likely to be harmful morphological change is a gradual process. As such we cannot observe it (ok, we can, but only on a very small scale) in the short periods of time we humans live for, so we must look around at the evidence on the earth to see if there is a record of morphological change.

This is absurd though. The Fossil Record shows sudden appearance of fully formed organisms, followed by stasis. It does not show gradual change as the Darwinists predicted. There are plenty of evolutionists who acknowledge this, and those that do usually support punctuated equilibrium (species are typically in stasis, and are allegedly punctuated by occasional bursts of rapid evolution).

This is absurd though. The Fossil Record shows sudden appearance of fully formed organisms, followed by stasis. It does not show gradual change as the Darwinists predicted. There are plenty of evolutionists who acknowledge this, and those that do usually support punctuated equilibrium (species are typically in stasis, and are allegedly punctuated by occasional bursts of rapid evolution).

This is mostly true, my only correction is a small one. Gradual change does occur in some places, it seems as if the actual fossil record is a cross between the gradualism model and the punctuated equilibrium model. But yes, evolution is nowhere as clean and constant as Darwin imagined. Then again, it is a process based on the random mutations in the genome of a population (thermodynamics begins to come to mind), so the evolutionary process does end up being a tad more complex then what they showed us in freshman Bio.

I do want to note, however, that Squawk's overly static rendering of evolution's gradient does not detract from his observation regarding the dichotomy between the common misconception regarding the state of the fossil record with regard to transitional fossils(namely, that there are none), stereotypically but perhaps not erroneously attributed to those subscribing to "creation science", and the actual number of transitional fossils uncovered, which includes the genus from which you draw your screen name Australopithecus

Last edited by TwoPoint7182818 on Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This is probably the best evidence for a higher-order evolution in action, but it still shows no morphological change. Also, at this level of evolution, it's weak because it's based on single protein enzymes. And, no function at a higher level of complexity, that involves multiple proteins totaling more than a few hundred fairly specified residues, has ever been shown to evolve in real time.

Talk about shifting the goalposts. Let us, once again, look at the original point

creo wrote:In order for evolution to occur, you need to add information to a genome (simple-to-complex), along with morphological changes. Can you think of one example where this has been observed?

Talk about shifting the goalposts, but meh we get used to that.

Ok so he wants two things. First of all he wants an example of information being added to a genome that results in morphological change. I actually provided much more than he asked for, so lets detail it further.

Very briefly, hox genes are the genes that determine how the cells in a developing body "decide" what to be. Every cell in your body (with the exception of germline cells) contains your entire genome, a full copy of your DNA. So, you might well ask, how does that first fertilised egg manage to divide over and over again and produce anything other than a bigger ball of identical cells. The answer (in brief) are the hox genes, which create what you can think of as a chemical gradient from one end of the clump of cells to the other. The strength of the chemical at a given location activates different genes within the cells at that location, telling them to become an arm, a leg, a heart or or liver cell. Clearly this is a gross oversimplification, if memory serves there are 16 hox genes in humans and it is the combination of them (and other things) that determine the development of the embryo.

Now, how do you think we grow a second pair of wings on a fly? We know that each and every cell in the body of the fly contains the DNA required to build wings. The question is, how do we get them to express themselves. The answer is by manipulating the hox genes. Turn a hox gene up or down in strength and you instruct the cells at that location to build another wing (or whatever the hell else you want) at that location. clearly whatever it is has to be in the genome of the animal involved, wings demonstrably being in the genome of flies.

Now take this a step further. Instead of human manipulation of the fly genome insert a random mutation that achieves the same result. Ok the unfortunate creature is probably fucked, a new pair of wings are likely to be detrimental to its survival in that this is a huge upheaval in phenotype, indeed an upheaval that would be predicted to be deleterious by evolutionary theory. That doesn't matter though. All we are demonstrating is that it is entirely possible for a mutation in the genome to demonstrate a new morphological feature.

The nylonaise example was not intended to show morphological change, but instead was intended to show that new information can be added to a genome. It could be argued that my "fly" example is not new information as requested, but the ability to digest a previously unknown substance is demonstrably new information.

In short, I gave far more information than requested. He is now, predictably, changing the goal posts.

But then that isn't why I find his post amusing. He opened it with "in order for evolution to occur", and then made up some bullshit. In order for evolution to occur all that we require is for an organism to be able to be able to pass on its characteristics. We require hereditability. We don't need any of the crap he is asking for for evolution to occur, since evolution is simply the change in frequency in gene variation within a population over generations. The rest of his post, though interesting enough to debunk, is waffle.

In his latest post he refers to "higher order evolution", presumably conceding that evolution has taken place. What, then, of his criteria for evolution, the ones I just mentioned. he seems to have debunked himself. And what exactly is higher order evolution?

Now to his point on real time evolution. What exactly is he trying to debunk? This looks like a straw man of evolution to me, can you get him to define a function at a high level of complexity, maybe even provide an example, and tell us what he would consider to be a realistic time scale for such a function to evolve. Can he also give us his reasons for suggesting the time scale he thinks this should occur in.

Creo wrote:This is absurd though. The Fossil Record shows sudden appearance of fully formed organisms, followed by stasis. It does not show gradual change as the Darwinists predicted.

I'm sorry, but what a load of shite. The "Darwinists" predicted gradual change? He does realise that the fossil record was well known long before neo-darwinism (introduction of genetics into Darwinian theory) and that evolutionary theory seeks to explain the fossil record, not contradict it? Indeed the fossils are the BEST evidence for the progression of evolution in geological time. We study fossils to see how organisms have developed throughout the ages. We study real time evolution to understand the mechanics, and the amalgamation of the two disciplines results in modern evolutionary theory. Suggesting that the two are contradictory is quite frankly dishonest. They complement each other. Anyone who has looked at this even briefly must be aware of the prediction of the existence of such fossils as Tiktaalik http://www.sepaq.com/pq/mig/miguasha/mi ... lack_g.jpg which is an interesting part of tetrapod evolution.

Creo wrote: There are plenty of evolutionists who acknowledge this, and those that do usually support punctuated equilibrium (species are typically in stasis, and are allegedly punctuated by occasional bursts of rapid evolution).

Ignoring the old cannard of evolutionist (ask him if he is a gravityist), I see nothing wrong with this particular sentence for the layman. Of course a given species can never really be said to be in stasis since genetic drift is ever present.

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

Netheralian wrote:I hope no-one minds if we cut and paste? Credit can be given...

Cut, paste, claim the credit yourself if you want. Just make sure the creotards get shoved back in their caves. Anyone capable of making the claims this guy is making is either quoting from a website with no clue as to what he is saying or has decided that the AIG position is the correct one and that where reality and doctrine contradict, reality is lying. He knows enough to know that what he is arguing is wrong, but still sticks to it.

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

Question 6:True or False. Humans and horses, both being placental mammals, are presumed to have shared a common ancestor with each other more recently than they shared a common ancestor with a kangaroo (a marsupial). The cytochrome c of a human is more similar to that of a horse than to that of a kangaroo.

I checked this one. I couldn't find any nucleotide sequence available for 'kangaroo' (which species?) cytochrome c so I can't really make the comparison. I did find comparable amino acid sequence for all three. I put them through Clustal and got the result claimed.

Kangaroo v. Horse 93%Kangaroo v. Human 90% Horse v. Human 88%

As you can see the similarities are...very similar. Plus the protein itself is only 105 amino acids long and using protein rather than DNA means all the synonymous mutations are not identified. This is nowhere near enough information to start judging evolutionary relationships from.

So, apparently the cytochrome c protein of a human varies in 12 places from that of a horse but only in 10 places from that of a kangaroo. So what? You cannot base an evolutionary tree on just one single protein. We're all modern-day animals, and our ancestral lines branched off each other millions of years ago. Plenty of time for individual proteins to mutate in some places. A reliable tree can only be constructed by comparing a substantial part of the genomes, instead of cherry picking an individual protein.

So it seems that the cytochrome c protein of horses had some additional mutations after our ancestral lines diverged. A real challenge of the ToE would be if the protein of humans and kangaroos would vary in completely different places compared to horses. But that's not the case, is it?

I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. - Robert McCloskey

Doesn't matter, debunk his shite for a casual reader to see. The world will always contain those that can't think for themselves, we must continue to debunk them in order that they do not gain followers who do not have access or the inclination to discover the truth for themselves.

So, apparently the cytochrome c protein of a human varies in 12 places from that of a horse but only in 10 places from that of a kangaroo.

hehe, so I guessed his motives well

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

as for his want of increase in information along with morphalogical changes, i think he means new structures being added, otherwise how does one measure an "increase in information" but as for new stuctures, how about the emergence of Cecal valves in Italian wall lizards

Contrary to popular belief, full-immersion holographic sex will not destroy society.

This is absurd though. The Fossil Record shows sudden appearance of fully formed organisms, followed by stasis. It does not show gradual change as the Darwinists predicted. There are plenty of evolutionists who acknowledge this, and those that do usually support punctuated equilibrium (species are typically in stasis, and are allegedly punctuated by occasional bursts of rapid evolution).

This depends on what scale we look at the fossil record. If we look at overall scheme of things we can see the gradual change.If we look at some organism in particular and the divergnece pattern of it we can recognize two patterns.

Anagenesis which is stable change of population over time. One prime example of this is the aquatic giant sloth, Thalassocnus, which is known from Miocene-Pliocene Pisco formation. As we go trough the formation we can see the change of this animal trough time:

T. Antiquus is the oldest and T. yaucensis is the yungest species. These species don't overlap stratigraphically so it seems that endemic population simply changed anagenitically.

These kindof anagenetic patterns are known but are rarer compared to the cladogenetic pattern, since preserving anagenetic change requires stable and constant sedimentary deposition over period of time and also an animal that stays around that sedimentation enviroment.

Another pattern is ofcourse the cladogenetic pattern. Animal diverges to different lineages and they diverge to other lineages and so on.

Gradualism and Punctualism are just divergence patterns. Both work on the exactly same "engine" of variation and natural selection.

I'm talking about the enzyme system process as a whole (what you asked for).

The DNA inside the nucleus is transcribed to the mRNA, which is then transported to the ribosome. The tRNA binds to the mRNA at the ribosome. When the tRNA binds to the mRNA, the amino acids are linked into a protein.

There are multiple parts needed simultaneously for this to function. Explain to me how this can happen in a evolutionary step-by-step gradual process?

Identify each pathway, which include precursor functions and a functionally logical sequence of events supported by empirical data.

I'm talking about the enzyme system process as a whole (what you asked for).

The DNA inside the nucleus is transcribed to the mRNA, which is then transported to the ribosome. The tRNA binds to the mRNA at the ribosome. When the tRNA binds to the mRNA, the amino acids are linked into a protein.

There are multiple parts needed simultaneously for this to function. Explain to me how this can happen in a evolutionary step-by-step gradual process?

Identify each pathway, which include precursor functions and a functionally logical sequence of events supported by empirical data.

I don't know, so magic man must have done it!

At this point you need someone with better knowledge of genetics than my own, but I'd just throw god of the gaps at him. AFAIK we do not know how the DNA molecule originated, though the best supported hypothesis that I am aware of is that it evolved from RNA. Doesn't much matter though, ask him if he will renounce god when a plausible pathway for the evolution of DNA is provided. For all I know one may already exist.

At this point all you are doing is going around the houses until he finds a question you can't answer. Rather than being satisfied with "I don't know" as an answer, he wants to insert a deity. The null hypothesis must be "I don't know".

Pope Rat: "Exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus a reductive vision of a person and his destiny."

I told the guy to question someone with the relevent knowledge of genetics but I doubt he will. I also tried to explain that belief in gods and evolution are not at odds, just the literal Biblical account of creation and cited Dr ken Miller as a christian biologist who accepts the theory but was met with this:

But I believe in Creation, not evolution, so I'll use Creation biologists; not evolutionary biologists.

At the moment he seems to be shifting to new questions whenever you provide an answer. Make him stick to the original point, until he concedes that you've answered him and drops the point, or he gives up.

When I started debating it was a mistake i used to make. Instead of admitting that you've got them, they'll shift to a different argument. Keep him pinned down until the original issue is resolved.

In terms of DNA evolution, the current most supported thinking is the RNA world hypothesis. Where RNA formed first, from nitrogenous bases. The bases can all be formed from hydrogen cyanide and formaldehyde, which were both present on prebiotic earth. The RNA was originally random, and self replicating. If one of the combinations results in a structure or protein that speeds up replication, then it will replicate faster and dominate the population. If additional combinations turn up more useful forms, they can add to the structure. The development to DNA is a much later process.